


If it Were the Real Me & You, It Wouldn't be the Right Thing to Do

by walkydeads



Category: Walking Dead, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Dary's Muddled Emotions, Dysfunctional Family, First Time, Hand Jobs, Life After the Apocalypse, Life Before the Apocalypse, M/M, Past Tense, Porn With Plot, Porn With a Lot of Exposition, Porn with Feelings, Post-Zombie Apocalypse, Pre-Zombie Apocalypse, family flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:10:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2267517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkydeads/pseuds/walkydeads
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl thought about life before the apocalypse and was confronted with a visual reminder on a scouting trip with Glenn. This uncovers some of his feelings about his family (especially his brother), the other members of the camp and especially the guy he's trapped with for the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If it Were the Real Me & You, It Wouldn't be the Right Thing to Do

Daryl remembered wallpaper.

The gaudy floral kind that was all the rage in the 80’s specifically. The kind that had vertical stripes of white and navy, with heavily shaded pink and lavender roses and deep green curling vines all over. Daryl never thought it was particularly nice looking, but his mama had enthused about it on the phone to all her friends and showed them swatches when they came to the trailer they were currently living in, so he didn’t really mind. His mama was happy and that meant his dad was happy and that was good enough for him. 

Remembers being maybe five or six and helping his mama and dad and Merle put it up. Getting the new house was a miracle. Dad had just finally gotten out of the army for good - though he was still well scarred from Vietnam- and had gotten a few job offers and a good sized loan for him to take out on a house. He went all out; nothing was too good for his family.

The couches and the store-bought paintings and even the oven mitts and coasters had somehow matched that awful wallpaper. He helped her arrange everything just so while Merle and their dad got in a play fight with the watered down wallpaper paste they ran over the seams and corners to make sure they stuck. That night, they had pizza in the living room and watched Indiana Jones, and his mama held him in her lap, a cigarette between her smiling red lips.

Virginia Slims. He’d learned that backwards and forwards. There were times when dad was at work and Merle was off with his friends that mom would press a five-dollar bill in his hand and ask him to run down to the convenience store to buy her a pack and keep the change. He usually just used it to buy a soda. The people that owned the convenience store knew him by name and made sure he always got home safe. And his mama would be so happy when he got home. Sometimes she’d ask for a sip of his coke, smearing lipstick on her glass bottle. Sometimes she’d let him try some on. And whenever his dad caught him with red still spread across his mouth, she’d say, “He’s still just a kid, baby. There’s no harm in it yet.”

Sometimes dad took it with a grain of salt, sometimes he didn’t. Even then, he was a drinker and he had a mean streak a mile wide. But Daryl’s mama was pretty and strong and she had a way of convincing his dad that no one else could match. She had even talked him into putting a bicycle on layaway for Daryl’s birthday, but in the meantime he was stuck taking turns with the neighborhood kids. When he heard the sirens, he wrote it off at first; they weren’t exactly uncommon on this side of town. But when they turned onto his street, somehow he knew.

He remembers the wallpaper, peeled on the hulled-out walls of their home. Dad had brought him there to see what they could scrounge up from the charred remains. Mama’s body - or what was left of it - had long since been taken away. After dad had grilled him at length about why he didn’t notice the smoke spiralling up from their house or why he hadn’t gone to check on his mama a couple times during the day, dad fell silent. Somehow, it was more scary and imposing than any yelling or hitting he could throw Daryl’s way. He was left with the lingering feeling that he deserved a sound beating, but his dad was too drained by this all to follow through. 

He found a couple of Merle’s old vinyls, unscathed, and figured Merle would appreciate them once he got out of the big house again. Dad was standing in the kitchen. His back was turned. Daryl saw something glinting in the rubble. He pushed his hand in and brought out a tarnished tube of red lipstick. Even then, he knew to pocket it before his dad saw. He’d misunderstand. And even at the funeral, when dad told him he wasn’t allowed to cry, didn’t deserve to cry, he only managed not to because of the golden tube in his pocket. 

Hiding it had actually been pretty easy, if only because he got pretty used to hiding from dad all the time, a pastime he and Merle shared once he finally got out of juvie. Eventually, Merle got so good at running away that he never came back. Dad was gone along with him, replaced with ‘father’ or ‘sir’. Any defiance of that rule resulted in yelling, hitting, ordering about, an endless barrage of chores. Sometimes Daryl got those even if he followed his father’s rules to the letter. Even then, Daryl kind of understood. Who wouldn’t get meaner after the only light in their life died? It didn’t matter. Daryl was pretty sure he was to blame anyway. If he hadn’t got her those cigarettes, she wouldn’t have fallen asleep with one. If he had checked on her, he might have woken her up in time. She would still be alive if it weren’t for him. He was just a reminder of what might’ve been.

But unlike Merle, he wasn’t brave enough to escape. He would sit in his room sometimes, hand in his pocket, just touching that tube of lipstick to calm himself down after a particularly nasty whooping or talking to. He needed to finish school so he could get a decent job and get away, he reasoned. He couldn’t just run like Merle did. Had nowhere and nobody to run to. 

What had become of Merle, he didn’t know, but it was likely he was sleeping on the streets, just scraping by the best he could. Sometimes he’d send a postcard, but god only knew if he’d moved on by the time they’d arrived in the mail. And Daryl knew he didn’t want that kind of life, even if he deserved it. If he could just be a little bit cleaner and a little bit quieter maybe his father wouldn’t be angry with him quite so much in the meantime. And on the other hand, he had seen his father with his head in his hands, crying his eyes out over Daryl’s mother, begging her to come back. He was scared like hell of his father, yes, but he also knew that he wasn’t evil and that people who weren’t evil could be reasoned with.

And there were nights when he was right. Their new home lacked warmth - a single story mill house with whitewashed walls and secondhand furniture - but the TV more or less kept them together. There were nights they could sit in the glow and watch Gone With the Wind or Andy Griffith or Bonanza and his dad seemed to be back. He’d smile and laugh and explain the parts of the movie to Daryl that he didn’t get. He’d let Daryl get the last slice of pizza or try a sip of his beer. Sometimes, he’d even get a whole can to himself.

Eventually, father always returned, though. Daryl had the scars - both tangible and not - to prove it. Sometimes there was a reason, sometimes there wasn’t. It didn’t really matter, in the end.

Father’s drinking was what did him in. It started slowly, when his night terrors would shake the house and Daryl would find him working his way through a case of Budweiser at four in the morning. Ended up in the hospital with liver failure and it was all downhill from there. He never apologized to Daryl or told him he loved him, but Daryl was there when he died and didn’t shed a single tear for fear it would end up with him getting slapped for crying again. He wasn’t expecting Merle at the funeral, even, but lo and behold he was wrong. He was surprised when Merle stayed at the house for a few weeks, surprised when Merle taught him to drive his motorcycle. Surprised when Merle came to his high school graduation.

He put a damper on things real quick after that though, announcing his departure over pizza while they watched Road House. Daryl panicked, unsure of what he was supposed to do from there. He knew he probably wouldn’t be able to go on to college after everything that happened. But Merle surprised him by inviting him along, laughed that ‘it wasn’t like any of us Dixons were gonna amount to anything anyway’ and slapped his brother hard on the shoulder. It was an offer Daryl was too afraid to refuse.

He let Merle take the reins on selling the house and the vast majority of their furniture. Daryl filled a duffel bag with clothes and loaded everything up in his dad’s old truck and they hit the road. They stayed on it for years, rolling from town to town until Merle pissed someone off enough to get them moving again. Along the way, the elder brother managed to get himself a pretty impressive rap sheet, getting Daryl quite a few shots for being an accomplice in the process. 

Merle followed in their father’s footsteps, becoming an alcoholic and a druggie and a mean one at that. Aside from the occasional beer, Daryl never touched the stuff, far too worried about ending up doing the same. It didn’t matter much though. The end of the world came barrelling down upon them with a suddenness and severity neither of them had ever expected.

Initially, it found them with a group of people camped at a quarry just off the interstate. He and Merle kept their tents away from everyone else’s - Merle being too against sleeping near ‘niggers, chinks, ‘spics and queers’ to quote him directly - and Daryl just trying to keep Merle away from everyone else and keep them all pacified. A cut off supply meant Merle had to ration what was left of his various drugs and it made him ornery. Daryl was so afraid of him overdosing that he hid his stash and only gave him something when he begged.

He had never really realized before just how hateful Merle was, maybe because it didn’t usually affect him directly. All Merle’s jabbering about the South ‘rising again’ or about how gays were ruining the state of the country usually went in one ear and out the other. He’d grown up mostly with a father who was too drunk or depressed to teach him to hate anyone but himself, and he’d grown up knowing people of different colors and genders and sexualities in school and thinking nothing less of them for it. But the way everyone avoided him back then was starting to make sense now. He was branded with the Dixon name. Everyone thought he was just like his brother, and he’d never gone out of his way to correct them.

It didn’t matter much now anyway. He tried to think about people outside of Merle that he gave a fuck about before all this happened, people he hoped were still alive. But there were none. It wasn’t as though he wished everyone he’d ever met was dead, but the only people he’d ever felt bound to already were. He hadn’t been around a whole lot of people since he graduated high school and he was usually too busy covering for Merle’s stupid ass to make acquaintances of his own. Weirdly enough, being in this group was the closest he’d come to having a group of friends in years.

Shane - the de facto leader - was the one that let them in to the group officially, after a few days time. Daryl had a strong feeling the man held a lot of the same views that Merle did, but his former occupation as an officer of the law kept him from voicing them. When Merle went on a tangent - which Daryl admittedly tried not to let happen often - Shane was the one person Daryl could usually count on to not be glaring daggers at his brother. It was honestly a little disturbing, especially since Lori - who seemed to be his woman - hated the both of them on sight, and Daryl had overheard her telling her son, Carl, not to talk to them unless absolutely necessary.

Daryl had been stuck with Morales laying snares and sound traps two days after they’d arrived. He was good people. Handy with a number of things. Strong, capable and there for his family. The type of person Daryl imagined his father might’ve been if he hadn’t died. His wife didn’t speak to anyone but Lori much, but she had given Daryl an ear of corn from their supplies once, and he often fondly remembered the small gesture. The Morales children were cute and they neither avoided him nor went out of their way to talk to him, which he appreciated. Especially when Merle would call Morales a ‘taco vendor’ or some other bullshit, it never made Morales treat him any differently. “I get it,” He’d said once, when Daryl offered a half-assed apology, “He’s your brother.”

Jim was alone. Shane once mentioned that Jim had been with his family and only narrowly escaped a herd of walkers, but he never spoke about it. Didn’t speak much at all. He had an aura about him that Daryl found incredibly off-putting, but at least he didn’t go out of his way to interact with everyone. Mostly he kept to himself, but sometimes he’d stare at the kids for long periods of time, like he’d been stabbed in the heart. Daryl wasn’t sure what to make of it, so he kept an eye on him, just in case.

Dale was some old fart who thought Daryl and his brother were idiots and made no qualms about acting like it. Daryl didn’t appreciate the attitude much, and retaliated in kind. It became something of a game for him, trading jabs with increasing obscurity, trying to prove his intelligence to the older man. The girls that had joined him, Amy and Andrea, seemed alright. The younger (Daryl had trouble initially remembering which was which) was bright and bubbly, good with the kids. Even Merle didn’t have anything mean to say about her, mostly because she was nice to the both of them, even going to the trouble of learning their names instead of just calling them both ‘Dixon’. Her sister was a bit more standoffish, but Daryl didn’t blame her. Merle’d been making eyes at the older one since they arrived, and her polite refusals had given way to outright telling him to fuck off, which Merle had taken as a challenge. Their exchanges seemed to worry Dale and Daryl alike, but so far neither of them had gotten violent. Daryl took that as a good sign.

Next, there were T-Dogg and Jacqui. It was probably a little racist for Daryl to lump them together like that, but he didn’t mean anything by it. They’d apparently gone to the same church before all this, were from the same neighborhood. So naturally, they spent a lot of time together. T-Dogg was a good man. He did more than his fair share of work. Before all this shit happened, he’d been a youth pastor and had taken his church van back into the city at least half a dozen times to get people out. Daryl respected that, but he disliked him regardless. Mostly because T-Dogg went out of his way to rile Merle up, to get him talking about his prejudices and point out how little sense they made. As much as he wanted to tell T-Dogg that Merle wasn’t the type to be argued into anything, he stayed quiet. Wasn’t his place. Jacqui ignored the two of them almost entirely, although she did occasionally thank Daryl for the squirrel he’d hunt. He appreciated what he realized must have taken a huge amount of grace and understanding on her part, for her to even speak to him.

After them, there were the Peletiers. Ed was a lot like his father, he knew that from the get-go. But his father hadn’t been quite like that. His father wasn’t lazy, and he didn’t hit women. It was strange because everyone knew what was going on but no one felt safe confronting him about it. Daryl was often ashamed of himself for not being the person to stand up and say something. Carol, the man’s wife, and Sophia, his daughter, both seemed really pretty and sweet, and he was sure they didn’t deserve to be treated that way. But thinking about it made him uneasy and whenever he saw Ed he would reach into his pocket and trace the old tube of lipstick with his fingertips to keep from decking him. He wanted to, desperately, but there had to be a reason Shane was turning a blind eye, and he didn’t want to threaten their place in the camp.

Lastly, there was Glenn. Glenn had rolled in with T-Dogg and Jacqui, but he hadn’t known them previously. In fact, Glenn seemed totally alone. There was no talk of his family or friends, just that he had narrowly gotten out of the city on T-Dogg’s last run in. Unlike Jim, he didn’t have a problem with anyone, and he also didn’t stay still for long. He’d make runs back into the city at least once a week, gathering supplies primarily, but also getting toys for the kids, beauty products for the women who wanted them and snacks for everyone. He had a kind word for everyone and tried to maintain good relationships with everyone at the camp. The only person he’d given up on was Merle, but surprisingly had taken Daryl’s polite indifference as interest in a friendship because he constantly asked Daryl’s opinion on routes out of the city, and even asked him how to do things, like how to track animals and hunt them with knives. He would always bring them back to Daryl to skin and clean, but Daryl didn’t mind. The kid might have a weak stomach, but at least he was helpful.

There were others at the camp, but after a week or so Shane decided they were the ones having trouble pulling their own weight and politely moved them to the furthest edges at the northwest side of the camp, telling them they’d be on their own as far as foraging and supplies. Daryl had felt a little guilty when he and his brother packed up to move a little further into the camp, so he never bothered to get to know any of them. Learning their names would just make it harder to leave them to their own devices. And since they eventually made up the vast majority of the dead when their camp was attacked, that was probably for the best.

Keeping Merle under lock and key was difficult, but Daryl did it for everyone’s benefit. In the beginning, it made him feel noble, and he hoped someone would notice, but eventually he grew to resent it, going on hunting trips on days at a time or offering to run into the city with Glenn. The kid seemed to love the company, babbling a mile a minute whenever the opportunity presented itself.

That was how they ended up here, in a cleared out subdivision a few miles outside of the city, looking for supplies. How they ended up in what was presumably some old lady’s home, with some majorly pissed off cats who bolted out the door the first chance they got. It had only been about two weeks at that point, so luckily the stink of rotten food wasn’t prominent. Other than a light layering of dust, the house seemed otherwise unscathed by everything that had happened around it. Glenn was wondering around, chattering excitedly about how the pantry might be full and they might even be able to share supplies with the holdouts on the far end of the camp and maybe they’d even be able to find a generator or something. And Daryl caught himself staring at the wallpaper. Touching it.

It was the same wallpaper his mother had loved, had wanted so badly.

“You okay?” The kid had said, his hand placed gently against the middle of his back. It wasn’t rubbing, which would have immediately put Daryl on edge. It was simply touching, almost holding. Anchoring him in the now.

He didn’t want to be anchored.

“Fine,” he grunted, stepping out of Glenn’s reach and moving into the kitchen, loading up on canned food and bottled water.

“I think everyone in this place got evacuated to Atlanta,” Glenn said conversationally as he filled his own backpack, “And it’s nice and gated. We could reinforce the fence and arm the gate. This might not be a bad place to bring the group eventually, don’t you think? Everyone could have their own house again.”

“Too close to the city,” Daryl shrugged, pulling his backpack on again, “I mean, the big groups of ‘em are pretty unpredictable and the city’s overrun. It would be nice, but I think it’d be too big a risk to take.”

Glenn pursed his lips, as if he didn’t like Daryl disagreeing with him. Daryl wanted to tell him to fuck off and think rationally instead of comfortably, but instead he just reached into his pocket and traced his mama’s tube of lipstick until it felt warm against his palm. Eventually, the kid just sighed and shrugged, “You’re probably right,” he said, “It’d probably be reckless to move back into neighborhoods right now. I just can’t help but miss the small comforts of living in a room with a bed, I guess.”

Daryl snorted, “That’s what you miss most? A bed?”

“Yeah,” Glenn sighed dreamily, “I had a really nice feather top mattress back in my apartment. It was like sleeping on a cloud. You know I went out of my way to get an inflatable mattress and hide it from everyone? I spent like four hours blowing it up one night, my jaw was sore for days.”

Resisting the urge to give a tongue-in-cheek reply, Daryl simply says, “So why’re you telling me this now? When I’ll just run and tell everyone else you’ve been livin’ high on the hog and keepin’ it a secret from the rest of us?”

“Because it sprung a leak like two days later,” Glenn said mournfully, “I’m back to sleeping on gravel.”

It took him a second, but Daryl dissolved into laughter, Glenn following close behind. They laughed far longer than necessary, and Daryl shook his head, his stomach hurting with the force of it as he leaned against the wall. “You’re fuckin’ weird, Short Round,” he admonished, still a little breathless. 

There was a flicker of something like hurt in Glenn’s eyes, followed by a glare, but he opted to ignore it as they fanned out to search the rest of the house. Daryl found a package of razors under the sink and a couple unopened bars of soap. Glenn came up with a few towels and a couple small sets of sheets and a few wrenches and screwdrivers from the linen closet, struggling to fit it all in his bag.

“You sure you can carry all that?” Daryl asked.

Glenn glared at him, “Yeah, I’ve gotten to the point where I can carry forty pounds or so. No problem. I’m not as weak as I look.”

Daryl shrugged, too uncomfortable to argue. Instead, he opted for going through all the drawers and cabinets, finding quite a few things that would fetch a nice price if the world ever went back to normal, but nothing that had an applicable use in the world as it currently was. He came up with a half-full bottle of headache medicine and closed the medicine cabinet when he heard a groan, something that meant one of three things: pain, pleasure, or walkers.The first and last were admittedly more common, so Daryl readied his crossbow, rounding the corner into the house’s one bedroom and stopped short.

“Glenn?”

The kid was laying face down on the bed, his backpack discarded on the floor, his body limp with relaxation. He rolled onto his back and let out another contented sigh. Daryl looked away, uncomfortable yet again. “Man, this bed is almost as nice as mine was.” 

Letting a bit of the tension drain out of him, Daryl lowered his crossbow and set his backpack down, sitting gingerly on the bed, the springs squeaking beneath him, “Feels alright,” he said noncommittally.

“No, no,” Glenn chuckled, shaking his head and pulling gently at Daryl’s arm, “You gotta lay down. Get the full effect.” He settled in, sighing softly as Daryl carefully arranged his limbs in the bed beside him, staying as far away as politely possible. There was an audible cracking sound as Daryl’s spine somewhat re-aligned itself and he grunted quietly.

This was nice.

He had forgotten how nice the simple things could be. After he and Merle had left his father’s house for the last time, they hadn’t had proper beds. They usually didn’t even stay in a town long enough to bother moving out of the motor lodge and even then he was usually sleeping on a couch. It was strange that in the midst of an apocalypse with a virtual stranger, he felt a nostalgia for home that he hadn’t felt in years, if ever. He almost felt like he’d see his mother smiling down at him if he rolled over. The feeling was foreign to him and he didn’t like it. Swiping at his eye, he coughed. “It’s dusty in here.”

“I know,” Glenn said softly, “Probably all those cats.”

Silence fell between them. It was oddly comfortable, especially considering Daryl was lying in bed with a stranger. A male stranger. But maybe he and Glenn weren’t strangers anymore. The line between strangers and friends had always been a little blurry to him, perhaps now more than ever. And Glenn seemed to like him, despite his brother being an asshole and despite him being an asshole himself and occasionally saying racist shit… it was more than Daryl could ever hope for from anyone. So maybe they were friends. Only friends would forgive that kind of thing. But it sucked, because Daryl wasn’t so tolerant. He was easily frustrated and embarrassed and defensive. He didn’t have much to give.

Except maybe this.

“We’ve got a bit of time,” Daryl said, half turning his head towards Glenn, “In case you wanna…” he gestured at the bed.

“Oh,” Glenn said haltingly. “Okay, yeah.”

And then he was climbing on top of him. For a second, it didn’t even occur to Daryl that this was an odd thing to do. But then, with Glenn’s mouth just inches from his, he realized, and halted him, a hand on each shoulder. He looked up at Glenn who looked down at him questioningly. Reassuringly. Daryl hated it. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked flatly.

“I thought…” Glenn blinked, sitting up a bit more but not rolling off of him like Daryl was desperately hoping he would, “I’m sorry, I thought you meant that we should… you know.”

Daryl stared back up at him, repeating his actions and words in his head. Slowly, he felt his face prickle with embarrassment. “Oh,” he said lowly, “I… no. I didn’t mean… that. I just meant since we’re here and we have time you should probably take a nap. Feel what it’s like to sleep on a regular mattress. Probably won’t get a chance like this again for a while. I can keep watch or whatever.”

“That’s… really nice,” Glenn said, rolling off of him finally and settling back down into the nearest pillow. “Thank you. And… yeah, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Daryl dismissed, staring at the wallpaper in the hallway, listening to Glenn’s breathing slow. He meant to get up and grab his crossbow and head for the door. To go through everything again and keep an eye out for walkers. He really did. But he felt a calm and an exhaustion he’d been holding off for weeks at least. Maybe longer. And he succumbed. Rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. It was only supposed to be for a minute, but when he opened them again almost all the light had left the room, and there was a warm body curled into his side.

He didn’t jolt awake the way he usually did, though. He could make out the lines of Glenn’s face in the soft purple light. It was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes, closer than it had ever been. Lying in bed with someone like this was foreign to him. As hard as it had been for him to make friends, it was even harder for him to form romantic connections. His brother, somehow, had no issues bedding women left and right, but it wasn’t something Daryl had ever felt interested in before. It was like the alcohol. Something that had changed everyone he knew and loved. Something that would just weigh him down and make living harder.

Glenn pouring himself on top of him was the most physical contact he’d had with another person since one of the neighborhood girls tried to kiss him when they were both six years old. It hadn’t been bad, but it had been right before his mother died, and after it happened he would dream about the girl kissing him again and her face melting away. He couldn’t even remember her name, or maybe he forced himself to forget. But when he looked at Glenn, it was different. He tried to conjure up images of Glenn dying horribly, of Glenn turning into a walker and attacking him. But here, in this world, it didn’t scare him. It did worry him, but he knew he was equipped to handle it. Knew he could if he had to. The inevitability of it actually calmed him.

Maybe that was what pushed him to do it, in the end. The thought that either of them could die at any moment but the other one would be okay. It made him want to be close to Glenn. Made him want to arrange his limbs with Glenn’s and take in his warmth. So he did. And he fell, unceremoniously, back to sleep.

“Daryl.”

The whisper was urgent, and when Daryl opened his eyes, the room was pitch black. “How long have we been out?”

“At least a few hours,” Glenn said, worry creeping into his voice, his warm breath fanning against Daryl’s cheek, “And these geeks get a whole lot more active at night. The camp is gonna worry if we don’t come back tonight, since we didn’t go out that far.”

Daryl untangled himself from Glenn, creeping over to the window and peeking out. There weren’t herds by any means, but there were groups; two or three walkers at a time, dotted across the neighborhood and the acre or so of empty land beyond it. None of them were close enough to be a threat right at that moment, but the night definitely left him and Glenn at a disadvantage nonetheless. “Doesn’t look like we have much choice, though,” he said lowly, “I’m sure the group will understand. Sorry, I shouldn’t have fallen asleep with you.”

“It’s okay,” Glenn replied offhandedly, “I’m sorry I cuddled up to you. I just kind of miss physical contact with other people, you know. It gets lonely, even my subconscious wants me to cozy up to someone.”

“You didn’t.”

“What?”

Walking back to the bed, Daryl sat down next to Glenn and stared down at his hands. “You didn’t cuddle up to me. I sort of… cuddled up to you. So, I’m sorry.”

By the time he gathered the courage to look up, Glenn was staring at him, his mouth twitching. Daryl desperately hoped Glenn wouldn’t laugh at him, but instead he just gave him a watery smile and reached over, squeezing his hand. “Don’t be,” he said softly.

It would have been easy to panic then, to jerk away from Glenn’s touch and ruin the moment. And the sad part is, it wouldn’t have even been because he didn’t like it. He was actually kind of desperate for any sort of physical contact, and the thought alone of Glenn touching him made his heart pound. But at that moment, his stomach grumbled. The both of them laughed, surprised by the loudness of it, and Glenn took his hand away on his own.

“We should probably get you something to eat.”

After rifling through their bags they came up with a pretty nice dinner, all things considered. Both of them got a can of Spaghetti-O’s and a can of pear halves as well as a bottle of water apiece. They didn’t feel too guilty about eating their fill since there was still plenty left for everyone else without it. The can opener and utensils were also pretty easy to find, and Daryl even held his lighter under each can until the tomato sauce bubbled. It was almost like a real meal. They sat cross-legged on the floor of the bedroom, facing each other as they ate, both of them occasionally glancing out the window or towards the hallway at the slightest sound.

“I used to eat stuff like this all the time,” Glenn said suddenly, licking sauce from the corner of his mouth, “I don’t mind it. I like Chef Boyardee. He makes good stuff. But I’m sure the others probably miss real food. Getting to sit down to a meal with your family… it must have been nice.”

“I miss pizza,” Daryl said wistfully after an awkward moment of silence had passed between them. He didn’t notice the strange look Glenn gave him and pressed on, “My family ate pizza more’n anyone ever cooked. It was fine, though. I loved pizza. If my dad ordered pizza it meant he was having a good day, and that was good for the rest of us.”

“Was it just you him and Merle?” Glenn asked. Daryl wanted to hate him for prying, but he couldn’t. On the other hand, he also didn’t feel like he could answer, so he just dragged his fork through his now lukewarm Spaghetti-O’s. After a moment, Glenn sighed, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be nosy. It’s just that none of us know much about you.”

Daryl sighed before taking a gulp of his water, “That’s probably for the best. Not much to tell anyway. My mama died when I was young, my dad when I was in high school. Merle looked after me ‘til I graduated, and we’ve been goin’ place to place ever since.”

“My story’s pretty stereotypical,” Glenn offered, even though Daryl never asked, “Was the youngest and the only son in the family and there was a lot of pressure on me to succeed. I was supposed to apply to schools with good pre-med programs, but I just… didn’t. I applied to schools in cities far from home, places I thought I would like. I thought my parents and I would reach a compromise once I decided on a school, but we… didn’t. They cut me off financially and I got the hell out of Macon as fast as I could. Made it as far as Atlanta, and then…”

Silence fell between them once more, save for the scraping of their forks against the cans they were eating from. There was an occasional grunt or thump outside, but it was so far in the distance that neither of them were especially concerned. “I’m sorry about Merle,” Daryl said, surprising even himself with the sincerity of his words, “He’s a little… he’s had a rough life. Was older than me when our mama passed. Dad and him were always fightin’ and he ran away for a few years. Didn’t come back ‘til after dad died. He doesn’t talk about what happened to him in those years but it changed him. He was always bad but he wasn’t like this.”

Glenn nodded, “But you do realize him being hateful makes everyone want to throw him out on his ass, right?”

His first impulse was to deck Glenn for saying something like that, but he just sighed, “It’s hard to keep him under control. I try, but it’s like… I don’t wanna lose him. He was there for me when no one else was. If I push too much he might disappear again. Don’t know why I’m tellin’ you all this… It’s so dusty in here, fuck.”

Daryl blinked rapidly, but before he could swipe at his eyes again he was wrapped in a tight hug. He didn’t know how to react. Last time he’d been hugged by anyone was at their dad’s funeral, and even then the vast majority of the people commiserating with him about his loss could actually give a fuck less. Something told him Glenn actually cared, though he had little to no evidence to back it up. He could feel empathy coming off of the younger man in waves, and it almost made him break.

“It’s okay,” Glenn told him, “It’s okay.”

He shuddered, trying to breathe without crying. Trying to keep himself together. He stared straight ahead, but he couldn’t see anything but darkness. And Glenn was so warm…

In the end, he didn’t cry. But he did give in. He buried his face in Glenn’s shoulder and just breathed in the closeness to another person that he’d been missing for so long, afraid to admit missing it for fear that it would make him seem weak. It was sad that he’d never been able to lean on his brother in the way he was now leaning on this man, who he barely knew. It was sad how easy it was to break him like this, and he felt thankful that Glenn seemed like a good person. Someone like Glenn wouldn’t trick him into showing his weaker side for laughs.

“You’re so warm,” he said, muffled by Glenn’s shoulder.

Glenn laughed, “I’m sorry, I always run a little hot.”

He made to scoot away, but Daryl reached out, holding him in place, “It’s alright,” he said, burying his face a bit deeper into Glenn’s neck and breathing in, “I wasn’t complaining.”

“Oh,” Glenn said, and he should have sounded awkward, if the world made any sense. But it didn’t anymore - never had, for Daryl - and Glenn sounded outright relieved. Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed like Glenn held onto him a little tighter after that. And just being close to someone like this made Daryl dizzy and a little giddy. He wasn’t sure what their parameters were now that they’d crossed this unspoken bridge. They were - at the very least - going to have to spend the night here together. Would they share the bed? Were they friends now? Maybe something more?

Even under circumstances such as these, Daryl found it pretty hard to believe that someone as amazing and kind as Glenn could see anything in someone like him. But hey, things were different now. Pickings were slim. If Glenn wanted to be close to Daryl out of nothing more than convenience, he wasn’t about to complain.

They eventually parted, with awkward laughter on Glenn’s part and downcast eyes on Daryl’s, cleaning up their mess from dinner and settling back on the bed after careful navigation of the pitch black house.

“It sucks I’m not even tired now,” Glenn pouted as he kicked back, “Shouldn’t have slept all day. Can’t even raid the house more ‘cause damn geeks are everywhere.”

“We could talk,” Daryl offered.

“About what?”

Daryl honestly didn’t have an answer. He shrugged and leaned back against the headboard, only mildly surprised when he ended up with a lapful of Glenn again. His hands came up to Glenn’s hips. Somehow, it was easier to process all of this in the dark. Wanting Glenn wasn’t something he’d ever considered before, and he wanted to wonder if Glenn actually liked him or if this just seemed easy, but not having to look at him eased his mind a little. Glenn wouldn’t do this if it would jeopardize anybody’s place in the group or make things weird. He was too good for that, and he’d probably weighed his options long before he put the moves on Daryl the first time. “I take it you already have another idea?”

“Yeah,” Glenn said softly, taking off his baseball cap and tossing it on the floor, “I mean, if that’s okay with you.”

“It is, I think,” Daryl nodded against the headboard, “I mean, I want to try, at least.”

“Good,” Glenn said. And then he was kissing him.

To be fair, the only representations of kissing or sex Daryl had ever seen had been on TV or on the other side of a hotel room wall. He didn’t know much about how these things were actually supposed to work. It fell somewhere between mindlessly screwing without feeling a thing and fireworks exploding behind your eyelids at the slightest touch, based on his limited secondhand knowledge. And with that being said, the press of Glenn’s lips to his exceeded his expectations. Something soft and tender seemed to sneak into an act Daryl never really understood before: the pressing of lips against lips. Being a third party to the act, he was never totally sure what it was supposed to accomplish.

But, having been educated on the matter, he was starting to feel like he’d trade every other mundane act he spent his days for sitting around with his lips pressed to Glenn’s. He didn’t want to breathe or hunt or talk or eat or sleep. And that was before Glenn ran his tongue over the seam of Daryl’s lips. Again, he didn’t know what to do, but he welcomed it gladly, and soon Glenn’s tongue had coaxed his into some strange sort of dance. For a few moments, Daryl was so quietly amazed that he forgot the outside world existed altogether.

Their teeth clacked and their noses bumped, and Daryl even choked on his spit once. It was by no means a perfect occurrence, but it was great as far as Daryl was concerned. So great in fact, that he was hard. That hadn’t happened without him being aware of it since high school. And he was as embarrassed then as he was with Glenn on top of him. He pulled away and buried his face in his hands.

“What’s wrong?” Glenn asked, and Daryl hated him for sounding more concerned than frustrated. He shifted his hips and Glenn understood. “Too much?”

“Just… embarrassed,” Daryl mumbled quietly, “I don’t wanna run you off, you know. But I’m gettin’ all worked up like a damn teenager.”

“It’s okay,” Glenn giggled, “If anything, I find it flattering. Don’t worry.”

“You sure?”

Glenn kissed him again, softly. “Yeah. Honestly, if you’re alright with it, I think maybe I want to… do something, you know? Like I could blow you, or. Something. I don’t know. We don’t have to. I was just thinking, we have comfort and privacy and I don’t know when either of us might get a chance like this again, so---”

His nervous rambling was quieted by Daryl’s lips. It was nice to know Glenn was every bit as awkward and apprehensive and eager as he was, even if the younger was coming at it from a more experienced perspective. It made him feel a bit smug, even, that he could make Glenn so nervous and fidgety. And hard, too, apparently. Daryl ran a hand over Glenn’s thigh, dangerously close to where the fabric over his erection ran taut, and Glenn hissed.

“What can I say?” He breathed as he laid a hand over Daryl’s own, slowly sliding it closer, “I respond to positive attention. And I’m not so far from being a teenager myself. So don’t be embarrassed about any of this. I want this just as much as you do.”

The sound of his zipper being undone echoed in Daryl’s ears as blood also seemed to pound through them. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. Nervousness and excitement combined in his veins as he ran his hand over Glenn’s underwear. “Did you want me specifically?” He can’t help but ask as he gently runs his hand over the warmth of Glenn’s hardness. If the answer is no, it doesn’t really matter, but he’s pretty sure it won’t be.

In line with Daryl’s instinct, Glenn nodded. “Way too long, way before I ever even got up the nerve to talk to you,” he says, his voice high and tight, “I… please.”

Daryl looked at him then, watching him writhe and whimper from being teased. It was a sight Daryl knew he’d keep logged away for lonely nights for whatever time he had left. “What do you want?” He asked lowly.

“I wanna… suck you off. Maybe,” Glenn breathed, looking up at Daryl shyly through his eyelashes, “If you’re cool with that.”

“I am,” Daryl nodded, desperately wishing he could be cool or ambivalent about the whole thing, but too turned on to care much. The thought of Glenn sucking his cock alone was almost enough to make him come on the spot. It was a little pathetic, probably. But Glenn didn’t mind, and that was all that mattered.

He kissed Glenn again, pulling him in closer. Glenn’s hands braced themselves against the headboard and he grinded down against Daryl’s hand and his hardness. The both of them gasped and Daryl’s hands settled in a grip on his hips. They rocked together for a few minutes, more breathing into one another’s mouths than kissing. But then Glenn’s lips started to move down his body, tracing a path from his jaw to his neck as his hands came up to slide under Daryl’s shirt.

“Too many clothes,” he muttered, tugging at the hem.

Daryl hesitated. He didn’t want anyone to see his scars. Glenn especially, now that he might be repulsed and change his mind about this whole thing. He started trembling, a little bit. It was embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as having to explain his fucked up body to the one person he actually wouldn’t mind touching it.

“Hey,” Glenn says, sensing something wrong, “You don’t have to. It’s okay. I’m sorry. But, if you’re worried about what I might think about you, I promise I don’t mind. Whatever you look like. Dumb tattoos, wicked battle scars, kinky piercings, whatever. I mean it. And besides, it’s super dark in here, so I don’t think I’ll see much, to be honest. Not exactly like I have night vision gog--”

“Glenn?” 

“Yeah?”

Daryl laughed a bit, despite himself, “Quit babbling and help me out,” he ordered, raising his arms a bit. It took Glenn a second to process the request, but once he did, he ran his hands up to Daryl’s pecs underneath the cloth, drawing it up and lingering a moment before pulling the shirt the rest of the way off.

In kind, Daryl’s hands slid up Glenn’s back, drawing his shirt off and discarding it in the floor by his hat. From what he could see, Glenn was beautiful. His skin was soft and light and - at least then - unmarred. He was thin, not yet willowy from malnourishment and days on the run without provisions. His arms were muscular from carrying supplies but the rest of his body wasn’t quite so defined. It was good. He liked that Glenn didn’t look like someone who belonged in this world. Liked it and loathed it at the same time, because he couldn’t help but feel unworthy in comparison. 

Glenn’s hand touched his face then, drawing his gaze back up to his eyes. “You’re beautiful,” he said softly, simply. It made Daryl feel all melty inside and make him want to throw Glenn off his lap all at once. He balked at the association to anything feminine on impulse, but with the way Glenn was looking at him, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. He looked away, unable to say anything and feeling his cheeks burn in humiliation.

As it turned out, Glenn didn’t give him much time to stew over the term of endearment, leaning forward to kiss him again as he grinded shallowly against him. Daryl grunted into the kiss, resting his hands on the small of Glenn’s back and gently guiding his movements, unsure of what else to do.

It didn’t take long this time for Glenn’s kisses to trail down his neck, to his clavicle and his chest, his hands sliding comfortingly up and down Daryl’s sides as he moved. Gradually, he slid out of Daryl’s lap and Daryl scooted up a bit to accommodate him better. “Pants,” Glenn hissed at him and Daryl panicked internally, thinking of the tube of lipstick in his left pocket. He let Glenn unzip them and stroke him for a bit through his underwear. Let his head tip back in ecstasy. But once Glenn slid his fingers into Daryl’s belt loops and pulled, he snapped out of it, grabbing Glenn’s hands in his.

“Probably shouldn’t get totally undressed,” He cautioned, boldly reaching down and freeing himself from his underwear. “Just in case. I’m fine like this.”

He stroked himself, suddenly feeling the boldest he’d ever been in his life with Glenn’s eyes on him. Glenn leaned back, watching him reverently. “Fuck,” Glenn muttered, “I… I really want to. I’m practically fucking drooling, I just want…”

“What do you want?” Daryl asked, his voice tight.

“You know,” Glenn said, his voice practically a whine as he braced his hands on Daryl’s thighs, “I wanna suck your cock.”

Daryl met his eyes, kept the stare and said, “Then do it.”

The shudder that ran through Glenn upon being ordered was almost more satisfying than the feeling of him batting Daryl’s own hand away to take over stroking him, “You’re crazy,” Glenn scoffed, “It’s like… you’re so coy and you’re such a fucking tease but you also do this thing where your voice just. Like. You could tell me to jump off a cliff and I would.”

There was a quip about how Glenn was sure dragging his feet on the whole sucking his cock thing on Daryl’s tongue, but it seemed the younger had read his mind, dipping his head down and licking the tip, making the snide words die in his throat. “Fuck,” he hissed, his hands sliding into Glenn’s hair almost automatically.

Glenn laughed as he licked his way from the base of Daryl’s cock to the tip again, falling silent as he slid it into his mouth. Daryl tried desperately not to buck his hips up, settling for spreading his legs wider and giving Glenn more room. Glenn placed a hand on his thigh, groaning gently as his head bobbed, sliding his hand soothingly over Daryl’s leg. Strangely, that small gesture was the one thing that kept Daryl from feeling like he was going to lose his mind.

Tightness and heat engulfing him, Daryl already knew he wasn’t going to last long. Weirdly, it wasn’t even the actually feeling of someone’s mouth on his dick that was doing it for him. It was the shocking, numbing thought that someone wanted him. That Glenn wanted him. And the little slurping sounds and groans Glenn gave off were like constant proof. It made his toes curl. “Glenn,” he said urgently, as if to prove to himself that Glenn was really there, “Glenn, I… oh, fuck.”

His hand clenched around Glenn’s hair, not because he was anywhere close to coming, but because he wanted something more. He wanted Glenn on top of him. He wanted to be able to kiss him. And so he tugged, and Glenn’s mouth came away with an obscene pop, leaving a trail of saliva in his wake. “Wha--”

Before Glenn could fully ask what was up, Daryl had hauled him up to awkwardly splay himself over his lap again. “Just wanted to kiss you again,” he admits quietly, pressing his lips to Glenn’s softly, almost tenderly. He wished distantly that he was good at what he was doing, and given Glenn’s reaction - which was to tilt his head and open his mouth to give him further access - that wish had been granted.

It was hard to hold on, given that the open air on his still slick cock felt so good that the slightest breeze could have him tipping over the edge, but he did all the same. He wanted to see Glenn’s face. He wanted to learn all the best parts of being with someone else. Glenn only startled a little when Daryl reached for his pants and pulled Glenn’s dick free of his underwear, stroking it and slicking it with the precum that had collected at the tip. Glenn’s eyes were squeezed shut and he was worrying his own lip between his teeth, giving small groans as he bucked into Daryl’s hand.

“Look at me,” Daryl ordered, sternness back in his voice. Glenn’s eyes opened immediately, a blush darkening his cheeks the longer he stared.

“Daryl,” he urged, his fingers closing around the elder man’s, halting his strokes. He brought Daryl’s hand up to his mouth and spat in it, scooting closer as he did. Their cocks brushed as he brought Daryl’s hand down again, closing it around the both of them and pumping a few times until he’d worked up a good pace.

Glenn tipped back then, bracing his hands on Daryl’s knees and thrusting hard into Daryl’s fist, his voice getting higher and louder with each small moan. “Daryl,” he begged, “Daryl, oh my god… I…. fuck.”

He pitched forward suddenly, grabbing at Daryl’s shoulders and capturing his mouth in a kiss, moaning against his lips with elevated urgency. His hips stuttered and he came in short bursts, mostly onto Daryl’s shirt. Daryl pulled away from his lips to look down and watch Glenn’s cock twitch, being milked dry, the last few drops sticking to the head of his cock.

“I can’t believe you came before me,” Daryl said, inexplicably proud of himself over something almost completely trivial, especially since that good, good feeling was creeping up on him too. He had more words his lips curling up into a crooked smile, smug and delighted with his stamina everything considered, but then Glenn was kissing him again so all he could get out was a deep groan.

“How could I not?” Glenn laughed, his voice still strained and distant, “God, you’re so…”

“So what?” Daryl asked, distracted by the pull of Glenn’s hand between them, now closed just around his cock, stroking quickly and tightly, the friction of his fingers enough to make Daryl’s hips jerk up repeatedly, in an attempt to get closer to that mesmerizing feeling, “What am I, Glenn?”

“Perfect,” Glenn breathed, looking up at him, “You’re so fucking perfect, god… I…. I want to see you cum so bad, Daryl, I’ve wanted to see it for so long. Please.”

“Yeah,” Daryl said almost mindlessly, tipping his forehead against Glenn’s “Yeah, yeah.”

And then he spilled. It was the first time in his life that he’d had an orgasm caused by someone else, including deliberate fantasies on his part. The only time he allowed himself to think of anyone like Glenn before this, it was in his dreams. Even then, it was unsatisfying and he still felt consumed with guilt afterwards. He’d touched himself before a few times, of course, when privacy allowed it. But nothing compared to what he felt as he watched his own release come out of him, felt his cock throb in Glenn’s newly-slick fingers, watched stripes of white cling to Glenn’s rumpled t-shirt.

He tipped forward the rest of the way, grabbing the collar of Glenn’s shirt in his fist and kissing him, unsure of what else to do. He felt exuberant, grateful, like he longed to be closer to the kid sitting in his lap even though that was pretty much physically impossible. Glenn held onto his arms tight and reciprocated. 

The blissful feeling ebbed and eventually they parted, Glenn sliding out of his lap to tuck himself away and sit beside Daryl on the bed. Daryl yawned despite himself. “Christ, that… takes a lot out of you huh?”

“Sex takes the body on a rollercoaster ride, kind of,” Glenn shrugged, yawning, his eyes heavy, “But that was… that was nice. I liked that a lot.”

“Me too.” 

Eventually, they ended up lying on the bed once more, both of them suddenly too heavy with exhaustion to keep up appearances any more. Glenn wrapped his arms around Daryl, not cuddling so much as just holding him, and Daryl was too tired to put up a fight about it, anyway. Not that he wanted to at that point, it was just impulsive.

They fell asleep like that, Glenn’s arms wrapped tightly around Daryl’s waist and Daryl’s face buried in a pillow. It was the soundest sleep he’d had in years and he was so comfortable that, even in his sleep, it scared him. Which was probably beneficial to them, as his light sleep could be easily broken by the slightest sound. The bump, bump, bump didn’t register for him at first, but the next loudest made his eyes snap open.

“Shit,” he hissed, as softly as possible, “Glenn. Glenn, wake up. Walkers.”

There were only two of them outside the window, and neither seemed to have noticed them yet. But, as the both of them knew, it was only a matter of time before they did, even through the slatted blinds. If Daryl could see them, they could see him. He knew that all too well. Glenn’s fingers tightened around his waist and they suddenly rolled backwards, out of the line of view of the walkers bumping into the house outside. 

“The hall,” Glenn whispered. We get in the hall and we shut all the doors and wait them out.”

They crawled towards the door, neither of them looking back as they booked it as quickly and quietly as they could for the hallway. Glenn grabbed the doorknob behind him and pulled it shut silently. Daryl closed the bathroom door, then the door to what appeared to be a sewing room. Safeguarded from the view of any walkers, they sat, catching their breath, their hearts pounding in their chests.

“God,” Daryl breathed, “I didn’t think…”

“Yeah,” Glenn nodded, “We got pretty lucky. I don’t think they saw us. Now we just stay quiet and wait it out. I’d say we ought to just get out while they’re interested in that side of our house but our bags are in the bedroom. And my hat. And my shirt. Fuck. If they didn’t see us they won’t be around long, at least.

They sat in the hallway, trying to be as quiet as possible. Daryl’s back against the wall, he shoved a hand in his pocket and ran the tips of his fingers against the smooth, warm metal there. Glenn leaned against him, just a little at first. After on the barest hesitation, Daryl wrapped an arm around him. The uneasy rhythm of bumps and groans from the walkers outside shouldn’t have been enough to lull them back to sleep, but when Glenn’s head slumped onto Daryl’s shoulder, Daryl couldn’t help but close his eyes as well.

His eyes snapped open later, unsure again of how much time had passed. Glenn was also coming to beside him. The light under the door was coming in more and more brightly. They waited and listened for walkers, but heard nothing. Daryl found an old flashlight in the linen closet and Glenn gingerly turned the knob.

There wasn’t a walker in sight.

Quickly and quietly, they got their things, Glenn redressing all the way and Daryl making sure their backpacks were packed well. They eased their way back into the main house. Then to the front door. They surveyed the neighborhood from the porch, and there were a few walkers in the far end, but seemed to be unaware of them. No clusters, nothing they couldn’t handle, though Daryl readied his crossbow and Glenn produced a crowbar from his bag just the same.

“I gotta take a piss,” Daryl said, gesturing at the corner of the house with his thumb, “Look the other way, will ya? I’m… kinda pee shy, I guess.”

“You weren’t shy last night,” Glenn smirked.

Daryl just glared at him until he rolled his eyes in kind and turned around. Rounding the corner, Daryl took care of business, then walked to the edge of the house’s fence. He reached down. The soil was heavy but easy to dig in. Perfect. He clawed a handful of earth from the ground and reached into his pocket. He watched the soil cover the gilded tube of lipstick until it was totally obscured. Then he heard Glenn calling his name.

It was time to let go of the past, he figured. A world like this never let you hold onto it for very long. At least now, he had something else to hold onto. Something that was going to keep him alive for a long time to come. 

Glenn smiled, “There you are. Let’s get going.”


End file.
